How to eat

I found this article today and I wanted to share it with whomever reads my blog. This is how I try to eat every day and I'm glad I've found I'm not the only one who thinks this way. *Hugs* to Michael Pollan!

12 Short Food Rules, From Michael Pollan:

1. Don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
2. Avoid foods containing ingredients you can’t pronounce.
3. Don’t eat anything that wouldn’t eventually rot.
4. Avoid food products that carry health claims.
5. Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle.
6. Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmer’s market or CSA.
7. Pay more, eat less.
8. Eat a wide diversity of species.
9. Eat food from animals that eat grass.
10. Cook and, if you can, grow some of your own food.
11. Eat meals and eat them only [sitting down] at tables.
12. Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure.
[I like to save room for desert.]

I just realized this

I just realized the fact that because I'm going back to work on Monday - Oh, wow...

I have turned into a one woman mini wave of economic stimuli in Orange County.

Here's the general list of stuff I had to do or acquire to prepare for this job.

1. change my tires - $1k, ouch, but, OOhhh I got that new tires smell :*D
2. new laptop computer (Toshiba Satellite Pro A200)
3. software for the new laptop (Office Pro, Visio, Winzip, McAffe)
4. wheeled laptop carrier
5. laptop cable lock
5. excel book for business analysis
6. hard sided pink luggage
7. GPS
8. new dress for the interview
9. two new pairs of earrings for the interview (gold studs and zircs)
10. two pairs of nylons for the interview ( cat trashed one pair already )
11. body shaper for under the dress for the interview, but I couldn't use it because I have to hem the dang thing!
12. hair color
13. ink for my printer
14. paper for my printer

...on top of the regular stuff like food. I was so happy to be back to work, I even called DirecTv and told them to crank my signal back on so I wouldn't miss The Tudor's on Showtime this Sunday night.

I have to call and turn the newspaper off now since I won't have the time to read it anymore. I'm crossing my fingers this all works out.

My $5 fashion find

My $5.00 fashion find is golden metalic flip flops that I found at Old Navy, a store I normally do not shop at because the clothing lacks a certain quality. Available in-store on on-line.

Gas

I sometimes have delusions of socialism. And these days I'm applying these thoughts to the price of gas. Lately, it's pissing me off. It pisses me off that gas is not treated as a world commodity. It's pissing me off that OPEC basically controls the price of the highest per-barrel oil producing countries to artificially inflate the price and then oil refinery companies pass their inflated prices onto consumers in the way of high gas prices.

I think the last time I paid for gas, which was Easter Sunday, it was $3.61 a gallon. I know I should not be complaining because gas prices in Europe are so much higher than here in the States and is sold my the liter, but we are spoiled and we drive everywhere, especially in California. This mentality of mine must change along with the rest of society as well our level of petroleum consumption if we ever want to see prices come down. Less demand will bring lower prices.

Where is the electric car when you need one? Actually, there was a whole documentary made about the electric car and its demise a few years ago. You should see it. It will make you mad.

And all of this moaning after I have accepted a consulting job with a commute 70 miles away from home. Grr.

How I spent my Easter Sunday

First I had a song in my head, so I wrote a blog about it. See previous entry.

Then, I was supposed to go to San Clemente to meet a friend to spend the day and hang out. Well, we went to the pier and walked around, yacking it up all the way there and back, but couldn't really do much more than that because it was Easter and places were closed for the holiday. Here's the four pictures I took.













I ate dinner at El Ranchito because I was hungry and it was open, thank you very much. I had the Carne Asada plate and the Strawberry Margaritas could have been bigger. My margarita limit was two. YUM! Their Menu

From the book of prose 03/23/2008

The Easter Song (Pop: piano, bass)

(1)
It's gonna be a beautiful day.
The sunshine 's resurrecting feelings
in my soul I forgot I had
And I am glad.

(2)
It's gonna be a day full of fun
I plan to smile so much
my cheeks will ache but I'll forget the pain
I'm done with the rain.

(br)
What's in the past
has past me by
What's here and now
is real
I feel I should run with it
Until the stars fall down from the sky
'Till I can fly!

(C) MMM Art, Inc., 2008

Alan Greenspan is my rock star.

I went to a two hour workshop at the Irvine OneStop about Career Personality Types.
The workshop was hard to get into as I was on a stand-by list but on Good Friday, hardly anyone showed up. I was in like Flynn.

Every single time I take this test, no matter how fast or slow or in the day or in the middle of the night Jung Typology Test tells me I'm an "INTJ".

Other famous people with my type are: Stephen Hawking, Andrew Grove, Marie Curie, Guy Kawasaki, Igor Sikorsky, and Hillary Clinton. That's right, Ms. Hillary "Vote for me on election day" Clinton.

Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Ulysses S. Grant, Frideriche Nietsche, Niels Bohr, Peter the Great, John Maynard Keynes, Lise Meitner, Ayn Rand and Sir Isaac Newton are examples of 'Rational Masterminds'.

This is a laugh riot to me because one of my 'away' messages on Yahoo IM is "Busy taking over the world".

But what's most important to me about this test is that I thought I had less of a life because I did not pursue the career I wanted. It so happens that I attained one which complements my "INTJ" personality type in Finance after all.

I know I'm good and what I do because I can make people roll their eyes into the back of their head at me and fall asleep in mid conversation if I really get going. I can speak at length at the details of a financial transaction when most uninterested parties would eventually change the subject. But people in Finance relish the details. I was affirmed of this when I had my last interview which lasted almost 2 hours. The lady I interviewed with is now my new boss :*D

So now Ben Bernanke is the now head of the Fed and we are waiting for significant change to take hold and bring the U.S. out of its funk with his action to lower the bank's overnights borrowing rate. Orange County is definitely in a recession and I feel it won't begin to get better until next year and the new Madame President is inaugurated.

I'm just happy I'm back to work shortly.

...and then the flood came.

It's a figure of speech. This had nothing to do with water damage at all.

Although it was pushed back until later in the day due to a later flight from Dallas, the interview went really well. It was like I was talking to an old friend from the industry and not someone who rolls their eyes at you because they are going into a coma while you talk about the intricacies of the secondary mortgage market and how you had to apply your knowledge in data for documents to correct a situation. Nice.

After I contacted the recruiter, he also said the same thing "great interview" and asked if I had made a commitment to this position. I had previously said I had an interview for a bookkeeping/client services job in Irvine, so I wanted the opportunity to see what that was about. I decided it was probably bad timing for me to change jobs throwing away 14 years worth of experience and I said that I have made a decision about the consulting job and that I accepted the terms. After I did that, I felt like this flood of paperwork came over me. Nothing was damaged except maybe my tolerance for HR documentation. I even had to run out and get an I-9 filed and shipped as well as replenish my black ink supply for my printer because I ran out preparing so may forms and faxes all in one day.

I have to wait for my new manager to FedEx my drug test forms to me later in the week.

Now I also have to acquire a laptop computer for the job. Hrmm.

Coupons

You haven't had a raise in months and grocery prices are climbing higher and higher. What is a consumer to do? You pinch your pennies and clip free coupons. I'm telling ya, it helps.

There are so many ways to obtain coupons online these days, it's silly for you not to take advantage of the manufacturer's generosity. The only tricks I can tell you about shopping with coupons are these:

1. Never buy something you will end up not using or giving away. Don't let the thrill of the bargain intice you to buy on the cheap.
2. Sometimes the store brand is cheaper and perfectly fine even if you were to use a coupon for the brand you like most. Many times the store brand will go on sale at the same time as the national brand.
3. Try to buy the items you do you frequently while they are on sale and with a coupon to get the most savings.
4. Coupons are worthless to you if they expire. Build your shopping list around coupons that are just about to expire and you'll be amazed that a lot of times, those items will be on sale.

Reference:
Redplum
Smart Source
Coupons Inc
GroceryGuide.com

My Life - Rain Delayed in Dallas

I'm supposed to have an interview today with a lady who is flying out from Dallas to especially talk to *me*. Pretty fancy, huh. She woke me up from a dead sleep at 7:45 AM to tell me she's having to delay her flight because of weather. Oh, man. I'm glad she called to let me know because I would have if it were me who was the one who was flying. Maybe it's sign #3. One being 75 miles to the job site and two being they won't supply me a laptop for the gig. Hrmmm. Hrmmm and Hrmmm.

WFAA Dallas News link about the weather 9AM CST